Reflections on God … Man … Life
Going through the letters of C. S. Lewis, I reached, this week, the time in 1960 when his wife, Joy, died. After a two-year cancer hiatus, the disease came back in full force throughout her bones. Lewis always knew this could happen. In 1957, after the laying on of hands and prayer, she made a miraculous recovery (even the doctors admitted as much). Yet both she and Lewis knew this might not be a permanent thing, that perhaps God was… Read more »
The Pilgrims survived the voyage to the New World. They avoided civil disorder by establishing the Mayflower Compact. But they weren’t able to escape the specter of disease and death. How did they handle this new challenge? First, they had to search out a place to call home. They sent out a party of men to try to find an opportune piece of land, but the Cape Cod area wasn’t hospitable to farming, and they also had their first encounter… Read more »
The Separatists/Pilgrims made it to Holland and were left alone by the government to worship as their consciences led. So why not stay there? Hadn’t they achieved what they desired? William Bradford, who became their governor at Plymouth for 35 years, was also the historian of the movement during that era. In his History of Plimoth Plantation, he lays out the reasons they decided Holland shouldn’t be their final destination. They were as follows: News of their hard life working… Read more »
About two weeks ago, I wrote a post centered on some of the discouragement I feel at times as I try to carry out the ministry the Lord has given me. The intent of the post was not to focus on the discouragement phase but to highlight the way the Lord placed people in my path to help redirect my thinking. The goal was to encourage my readers that we must never grow so weary that we lose hope. I… Read more »
As Christians, we want to believe the best about people. We seek to look beyond what they are now to what they may become once they get their lives in sync with the Lord. Yet we cannot ignore the sinfulness of man; we need to be realistic. C. S. Lewis provides us with a perspective we need to keep in mind in our dealings with everyone. I have two short quotes for you today, but they are related. Let’s begin… Read more »
Pretty good dissertation on the problem we sometimes have with faith. C. S. Lewis helps explain what the problem might be: There are things, say in learning to swim or to climb, which look dangerous and aren’t. Your instructor tells you it is safe. You have good reason from past experience to trust him. Perhaps you can even see for yourself, by your own reason, that it is safe. But the crucial question is, will you be able to go… Read more »
Nothing fancy today . . . or long. I just want to make a few statements to help provide some understanding for why I am so dedicated to speaking out about righteousness in government and culture. I don’t do so from some position of presumed authority or because I think I’m the fount of all wisdom. In fact, it’s precisely due to the failures in my own life over my 61+ years that I feel called to write and teach…. Read more »